We arrived late in the afternoon and went to our hotel, a very nice Crown Plaza catering to westerners. What we see of Kathmandu so far is that it is considerably cleaner in the streets from India. While there are a lot of people, it doesn't seem as crowded as India. After very stifling heat in India (temps 105 or higher), the weather here, around 80 in the day to 60's at night), is very refreshing. This small country occupies .02% of the land mass on the planet. The people here speak up to 102 languages. They are over 80% Hindu and over 10% Buddhist. Nepal became a republic in 2006 but in 2002 the Crown Prince killed himself and all of the royal family, except one uncle out of the country, so the move to ... read more

While in the town of the Taj Mahal, we also visited the tomb of the 3rd Moghul emperor, Akbar. Legend is he had well over 300 wives but only 3 sons survived. He was considered a great ruler 400 years ago. Then the all marble tomb completed right before the Taj Mahal, built in 1622 for the father of the Emperoress' father. Because it was the first of all marble it is called Baby Taj. We went to the Agra Fort built by and inhabited by six successive Mughal emperors. This is where Shah Jahan was imprisoned by his son and where he just watched the completion of his Taj Mahal. We went to a marble factory. This area is famous for it's marble work and inlays as evidenced by the Taj and Baby Taj. They ... read more

Today we spent learning about the HIndu religion and visiting it's temples. Hindu is one of the world's oldest religions and while they have millions of gods, they practice very peaceful teachings. Basically anything that can help a human becomes a god, sun, rain, cows, monkeys....and to keep a balance of energy, each male god must also have a female partner, wife. Our first visit was to the Birla temple, a very beautiful mosque with several gods represented. This is the temple that Ghandi first called for opening the temples to the lower caste. Priests sit by each god's alter and assists the prayful. One alter was of the god Shiva and his wife Parvati. Devotees touch the feet to receive the gods blessing. Not one to take any chances I of course touched the feet ... read more

Our last day in Russia..... We started our day with a tour of the Moscow Metro. No, really, a tour of the subway. Wait till you see the pictures. It actually made the list of 1000 things to see before you die. It boasts 8 million riders a day but was amazingly clean, including no graffiti that we saw, although we were told there was some at other stations. This is an extremely expansive system and dates from the 1930's which makes one, if not THE, oldest systems in the world. It was also used as a bomb shelter in the WWII. Ernest was so in his element. As those of you who work with him can imagine, I had to keep my eye on him to make sure he didn't wander off and miss our ... read more

Before we get to our last stop before Moscow, couple of other points. There did not used to be a continuous waterway from St. Petersburg to Moscow. The Moscow Canal was built in 1825 to link Moscow to the Volga River. This canal suffered neglect after railroads took over raw material transportation. In the 1930's, Joseph Stalin came up with the "Big Volga" plan to dam the Volga for a reservoir and build another canal to a further point in the Volga. The construction was carried out by GULAG prisoners at total disregard for their lives as they dug it out shovelful by shovelful. The resulting hydro-plants and locks allow Moscow to have a constant water and electric supply and remain connected to Russia's 5 major seas but at the cost of 700 villages and 4000 ... read more